Plane crash investigation ongoing
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Four people killed in the crash of a small airplane June 27 near Dixon died of blunt force injuries, according to Lake County Deputy Coroner Dan Yonkin.
Yonkin couldn’t determine for sure if the victims died instantly, but said the cause of death for all four was injuries sustained in the impact of the crash, and not a fire that burned much of the wreckage.
“It was clearly blunt force injuries,” he said.
The four victims were Melissa Weaver, 23, and Erika Hoefer, 27, both of Kalispell, and two Missoula men, 25-year-old pilot Sonny Kless and 28-year-old Brian Williams. The four friends were on a sightseeing trip that originated from Kalispell City Airport and took them north over the Flathead National Forest, then south along the east side of Flathead Lake, according to a preliminary accident report from the National Transportation Safety Board. The last radar return placed the single-engine Piper aircraft near Dixon at an altitude of about 300 feet above ground level.
Since publishing a basic report on the crash July 13, NTSB investigator Van McKenny has continued to inspect the plane and interview witnesses.
“We’re also still trying to collect any other radar data that we can possibly locate,” he added.
According to McKenny’s initial report, several witnesses saw a blue and white single engine plane flying low over the Flathead River between Perma and Dixon around 4 p.m. June 27. So far, McKenny hasn’t interviewed anyone with new information about the crash.
“We don’t have any witness saying exactly a location or time of the plane going down,” McKenny explained. “But everything stands consistent with what we knew back then (before the preliminary report).”
The small plane’s wreckage was discovered after a three-day air, ground and water search in a remote, rugged area a few miles south of the Flathead River and west of Dixon near Revais Creek.
While the craft was largely intact and didn’t leave a debris trail, “there was a severe post-accident fire that consumed the majority of the cockpit area,” McKenny said.
A final NTSB report won’t be published for another nine months to a year.
While the investigation process may seem slow, McKenny explained, the NTSB has only 60 investigators nationwide, each looking into about 40 aviation accidents per year.
“Data collection and putting stuff together takes some time,” he said.
Toxicology reports on the pilot and three passengers are also pending.
“Sometimes that takes a while,” Yonkin said.
